The pandemic has been slow to gain a foothold but that is about to change for the worse, writes Oliver Moody in Berlin

The death of Sepp Mangstl was as sudden as it was cruel. The musician from Ostermünchen, a village 20 miles southeast of Munich, was a healthy 54-year-old man with no known medical conditions and the robust lungs of a seasoned flugelhorn player.

A week after a trip to Madrid, he was taken to hospital last Thursday with severely laboured breathing. He died at 3pm the next day.

Deaths such as Mr Mangstl’s are enough of a rarity in Germany that they are still noted by the press.

Pedestrian paths in Stuttgart city centre are now empty as residents heed the call to stay indoors

ALAMY

The country has 36,508 confirmed cases of coronavirus but only 198 fatalities. This makes the death rate 0.5 per cent, compared with 3.8 per cent in China and over 9 per cent in Italy.